By Breitbart News Network | Created at 2026-09-30 22:01:59 | Updated at 2026-10-01 05:12:11
11 hours ago
Former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Kristi Noem has filed for divorce from her husband Bryon Noem following months of speculation about the couple’s marriage.
Noem, also the former governor of South Dakota, filed the legal paperwork in Hamlin County, South Dakota on April 6, but the divorce papers were not revealed on the court’s online server until Monday.
Documents state the basis for the divorce as “irreconcilable differences,” the Hill reported Tuesday.
The couple has been married since May 23, 1992, according to the documents.
When contacted by a Sioux Falls news station Tuesday, Bryon Noem said, “I can’t comment right now.”
Attempts by outlets to reach Kristi Noem, who now serves as Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, were unsuccessful.
The divorce paperwork was filed shortly after March 31 when the Daily Mail revealed “busty bimbo” photos of Byron Noem cross-dressing in online chats with fetish models.
Kristi Noem’s representative at the time told news outlets the revelation “blindsided the family” and “devastated” the former governor.
Only weeks earlier her husband had attended portions of a House Judiciary Committee hearing in which Kristi Noem testified, the Hill reported.
Some of the questions in that hearing were about Corey Lewandowski, President Trump’s former campaign manager, regarding his role with DHS. The hearing reignited speculation about Noem and Lewandowski, the subject of a report in 2021 by a conservative news website that accused the two of having an affair.
In 2021, then-governor Noem blasted the report, saying, “These rumors are total garbage and a disgusting lie.”
“These old, tired attacks on conservative women are based on a falsehood that we can’t achieve anything without a man’s help,” she posted in a statement at the time. “I love Bryon. I’m proud of the God-fearing family we’ve raised together. Now I’m getting back to work.”
Kristi Noem served as South Dakota’s governor from Jan. 5, 2019, until Jan. 25, 2025, when she left to take the job as President Donald Trump’s DHS Secretary.
Often presenting herself in controversial, highly-publicized Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdowns led to her critics nicknaming her “ICE Barbie.”
Her high-profile image afforded Democratic leaders more fodder in their opposition to the president’s removal of criminal illegal aliens that had flooded into the country during the Biden administration.
In early March, the president removed Noem from the job, posting on Truth Social she “has served us well” and has had “numerous and spectacular results” especially on the border.
Replacing her with Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin, Trump named Noem as Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, a multinational security and politically alliance aimed at combatting drug cartels and organized crime in the Western Hemisphere.
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
